My experience of test screenings is that you don’t know what kind of mood people are going to be in, and sometimes the studios accept what Joe Blo says – and this guy could just be a frustrated filmmaker, or not paying attention. – Antoine Fuqua
The challenge for a director – and I think a lot of directors feel the same way – is that today we have to put on a producer’s hat, too. Meaning, you have to sometimes think of it being ‘business show,’ not just ‘show business.’ – Antoine Fuqua
You don’t just have to see superhero movies. Ultimately, those movies are westerns – superheroes are good guys fighting bad guys in a landscape. In westerns, that divide couldn’t be any more clear, but the only superpower you have is that you’re a quicker shot than the other guy. – Antoine Fuqua
The simple answer is I’d just be a guy trying to feed my family, like everybody else. The complicated answer is, I think I’d be in some sort of military or government world of some sort. – Antoine Fuqua
Every time I look through the lens with Denzel, I’m like a 12-year-old kid. It’s hard for me to look at the monitor because the fun is in watching him. – Antoine Fuqua
If you disagree with the way a colleague did something, call him up, invite him out for a coffee, talk about it. But don’t do it publicly. – Antoine Fuqua
It’s not worth it, it’s not about money, especially when you’re dealing with a culture. It should be about elevating the idea of what we are and who we are as people in the cinema, and that kind of stuff keeps dragging us back down. – Antoine Fuqua
At one point, there wasn’t a black quarterback in the NFL. When you start winning, then you start seeing more. Jumping up and down and screaming and calling people names is not going to change anything. – Antoine Fuqua
Each time you see a Western movie, it’s a good reflection of where things are in the world at that time. It’s probably one of the purest forms of cinema that really tells you where the world is. – Antoine Fuqua
I don’t understand why we give up genres, and the Western is a great genre. It’s a part of the rich history of cinema and who we are as we’ve evolved as people, as a community. – Antoine Fuqua
Bruce Willis. Pain in my ass, no problem about that. We just didn’t get along. We got along off camera, but shooting we just didn’t get along. – Antoine Fuqua
When you’re sitting ringside, there’s a primal thing there that hooks into violence and excitement. It’s just two guys going at it in the ring – there’s no team, no one to pass the ball to – and there’s a certain excitement to that. – Antoine Fuqua
I watched the ‘Seven Samurai’ a lot because I loved it growing up. I can’t describe to you how powerful that was. When you’re a kid, you can’t watch an almost-three-hour movie, but this was a war I just never saw before, with these samurai. I could relate to it, just being poor. – Antoine Fuqua
The story is also about the battle between Arthur and the Saxons. The Saxons were destroying everything they came across and Arthur was left when Rome was falling because this movie takes place in 400 A.D. – Antoine Fuqua
When you’re a director, and you look at Scorsese’s work, he’s always challenging us to push the envelope and break the rules. Someone like that is necessary and a godsend. – Antoine Fuqua
It takes all sorts of people to come together to fight tyranny. It’s not about one race anymore. – Antoine Fuqua
It’s a hard line to walk, man. Cause you know you want to make this movie, you want to make it dark and real, you want to show all this stuff but unfortunately you can’t always do that. – Antoine Fuqua
Being a kid growing up with Kurosawa films and watching Sergio Leone movies just made me love what it could do to you, and how it could influence you – make you dream. – Antoine Fuqua
Cinema Paradiso, because it reminds me of why I make movies, the magic of movies, the romance of movies. – Antoine Fuqua
People in Hollywood go home to their wives and children who look like they do. If you’re in that position, your natural thought pattern is sometimes to think, ‘Superman, oh yeah he’s white.’ You can’t get mad at somebody for doing that. It’s the world they live in and for some, they only live in that bubble. – Antoine Fuqua
But I like to go to movies with my son because it’s still fun; it reminds me of why I make movies. – Antoine Fuqua
I used to get off the bus, and there’d be a crowd around, you know, and I was thinking, ‘God, I hope this is not for me.’ And it normally was, and it was because someone said something to my sister, and the first she says is, ‘Well, I’ll get my brother.’ – Antoine Fuqua
When I was younger, growing up in Pittsburgh, they had a ‘Golden Gloves’ program through the Boys and Girls Club. In Pittsburgh, New York, Philly, Washington, those areas, I would go and spar at competitions. – Antoine Fuqua
You have to feed your soul and spirit, but you also have to be a professional and remember the business that you’re in. Everything is not your passion project. – Antoine Fuqua
Anyone who’s done their homework knows that the West was a pretty rough-and-tumble place. People from all over the world were there – and when you were there, you had to be tough as nails. – Antoine Fuqua
I just think you can’t shut your life off to just, you know, one thing. You gotta be open-minded. Explore things. Feed your artist. – Antoine Fuqua
I’ve become friends with Michael Mann and Oliver Stone; I’ve seen those guys work and that was great to see. – Antoine Fuqua
